Latest / The Daily Sarcast / August 5th, 2026: No More Applying To Colleges, The White House Borrows Nicole Kidman And My Grandfather's Ashes Getting Confused For My Drugs

Transcript

August 5th, 2026: No More Applying To Colleges, The White House Borrows Nicole Kidman And My Grandfather's Ashes Getting Confused For My Drugs · The Daily Sarcast

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  Today's episode is sponsored by Passwords. It's the most meaningful phrase to
• 0:05
  you with letters, numbers, and symbols that are standing between you and your own accounts.
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  Lindsay123 isn't secure enough. Now your password needs a capital letter,
• 0:16
  a number, a symbol, a blood sample, and the name of your first childhood pet's kindergarten teacher.
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  And just when you finally remember it, your password has expired.
• 0:26
  Passwords, protecting your information while making sure you can never access it.
• 0:30
  I stay out of the current political world. Why piss off half the country when
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  you're in the business of entertaining people?
• 0:37
  Tom Selleck on still being able to stay out of politics. Insert theme song here.
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  This is the Daily Sarkast. I give you the news and maybe a laugh.
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  I'm Lindsay Vernick and today is August 5th, 2026.
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  Good morning. I am still trying to decipher a dream that I had last night about
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  this monster who told me that he wasn't going to eat my head because he was
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  going to let me escape, but he still had to eat me a little bit.
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  And I'm still trying to figure out what this all means for me.
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  My God, I've really been spending way too much time alone. Okay,
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  so in real news, college admissions is getting a little weird because you don't
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  even need to apply anymore.
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  There's a growing number of schools using something called direct admissions.
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  They look at student information and send acceptance offers before the student
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  ever submits an application.
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  So you're probably thinking, how are they finding these students?
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  Are colleges secretly hiding in the bushes outside high schools with binoculars? No, they are not.
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  Although that would probably make things a lot more interesting.
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  They're using information that already exists, like academic records,
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  GPA, coursework, and data from college search platforms and recruitment programs.
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  So if a student's grades show they're a good fit, colleges can reach out and
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  be like, Hey, congrats, you're in.
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  The reason that this is happening is because colleges have a big problem right now.
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  Enrollment rates are really down, and a lot of schools, especially small colleges
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  and regional universities, are competing a lot harder to fill up their classrooms.
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  At the same time, the traditional application process can be a giant obstacle, and we all know it.
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  You have to write these essays, pay fees, get recommendations,
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  fill out endless forms, and explain how a random childhood experience shaped
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  your entire personality.
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  Direct admissions flips the entire process. Instead of students chasing colleges,
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  colleges are starting to chase students.
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  The goal is to find qualified students who might never apply because the process
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  feels too expensive, confusing, or just overwhelming.
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  But now this doesn't mean every teenager in America is getting a free pass into
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  Harvard. I mean, could you imagine?
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  Most people are still writing that essay about your unique perspective,
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  and the top schools are still going to make you prove your worth and then reject you right after.
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  But for many colleges, the future may look like a college version of LinkedIn recruiting.
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  Colleges have spent decades saying, convince us why you belong here.
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  And now a lot of them are like, actually, can we convince you that you belong here?
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  Remember that AMC movie theater ad where Nicole Kimmon dramatically walked into
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  a theater and told us that somehow a heartbreak feels good in a place like this,
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  While the White House watched that commercial and thought, why reinvent the
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  wheel? Let's just copy this one.
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  So the White House released a video promoting what it called the Golden Age
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  of Manga, using a style and very similar structure to AMC's Nicole Kimmon ad.
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  People immediately freaked out because the original AMC campaign was a commercial
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  about the magic of going to the movies. It literally had nothing to do with politics.
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  And the White House just used this recognizable pop culture moment to create a political message.
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  What? That's crazy. The White House would never do that.
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  AMC's ad has become famous because of its over-the-top seriousness.
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  Nicole Kidman standing in a movie theater saying things like,
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  We come to this place for magic, turned into a meme, and like, everybody knew it.
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  And now that same dramatic energy has been repurposed for politics.
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  Nicole Kidman has survived rain, heartbreak, and bad movies,
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  but she may not have been prepared for the greatest challenge of all,
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  being pulled into the political arena.
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  Move over, Gen Z. Gen X is having a moment. and that moment involves cocktails.
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  There's this new trend that's showing more Gen X adults are going out to bars,
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  parties, and embracing nightlife again.
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  After years of focusing on careers, kids, mortgages, and pretending they weren't
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  exhausted, Gen X is rediscovering the joy of going out. Good for them though, right?
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  This is the generation that grew up with zero supervision, rode bikes until
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  the streetlights came on, and were basically raised by a house key around their
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  neck. They deserve to have some fun again.
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  The reason Gen X nightlife is making a comeback is pretty simple.
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  A lot of them have something they didn't have in their 20s, money.
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  They're older, they have more financial freedom, their kids are getting older
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  or have left home, and they finally have the time and disposable income to say,
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  you know what, I would love to spend $22 on a cocktail too.
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  Meanwhile, younger generations have had a very different relationship with drinking.
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  Millennials in Gen Z are questioning alcohol culture, embracing sober lifestyles,
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  and swap late nights out for things like wellness routines and expensive water bottles.
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  Which means Gen X is basically walking into bars while Gen Z is walking into the spa.
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  It's ironic. Gen Z, the generation famous for being ignored,
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  is now becoming the cool generation again.
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  The same people who were told they were the forgotten middle child of generations
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  are now the one keeping happy hour alive.
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  Gen Z survived dial-up internet, questionable parenting, and the emotional trauma
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  of waiting for a song to play on the radio so you could record it onto a cassette.
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  And their reward is a $25 cocktail and a bedtime of 10.30.
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  In Lindsay life, working remotely and my roommate being away is really starting to get to me.
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  Like, I'm alone a lot.
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  I literally had a conversation with
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  the fly that's been buzzing around my apartment for the last week or so,
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  and I actually considered naming him but on the bright side I had dinner at 4 30 p.m,
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  and I got excited because no one knew about all of this except now I'm putting
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  this on my podcast so you all know now everybody knows okay.
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  Things I'm thinking about. Okay, I talked about this in my podcast the other day.
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  This is the time that my mom, my grandmother, dropped the ashes of her husband,
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  my grandfather, and everyone thought that it was my drugs.
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  So when my grandmother lost her husband, my grandfather, a lot of years ago
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  now, she decided that she wanted to put some of his ashes in a necklace.
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  Yes she was i think the first and probably only person at this crematorium who chose this necklace,
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  okay but that's besides the point so i'm down the shore i think this is like,
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  over five years ago now with my entire family as we always do you know we have
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  the grandparents my mom my parents my sister my friends were actually over aunts
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  uncles cousins you know like there's 15 people we're talking about,
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  and I'm standing at the kitchen in the kitchen at the beach house talking to
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  my mama my parents my friends,
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  and all of a sudden my aunt taps me and she's like oh my god Lindsay Lindsay
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  look at that and I look down at the ground and there's like a pile of like white
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  grayish stuff on the floor are.
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  And she was kind of mad at me. I mean, obviously, she thought that her niece
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  just spilled cocaine all over the kitchen floor.
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  And mind you, this is before I ever saw drugs, too, honestly.
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  So I was even more confused why there would be drugs on the kitchen floor.
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  So my aunt's just glaring at me so mad that I apparently brought drugs into
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  the house that spilled everywhere.
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  And I'm just like beyond confused because again I have never been around the
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  drugs so I honestly had no idea what it was so I bend down and I start going through,
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  the supposed drugs and I find the little bullet that said mark.
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  January 15th 2016 or whatever the day he died oh wow he actually died 10 years ago. That's crazy.
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  So I hand the bullet to my aunt. I said, these aren't my drugs.
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  It's pop-pop. Pop-pop's on the floor.
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  So then everyone started freaking out. Everyone's just staring at the floor
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  and no one knows what to do.
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  And everyone's just like whispering to each other because no one wants to blurt
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  out that our dead grandfather's ashes are just all over the house.
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  So finally out of nowhere my grandmother just goes all clean it up,
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  and just like brushes it up under her hand and like carries it out outside into
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  the bushes so that's the story of the time my grandmother dropped the ashes
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  all over the floor and everyone thought it was my drugs,
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  i really hope that this wasn't the episode that my mom is sending to her friends to finally tune into,
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  Cooking tip of the day. The San Francisco sourdough from Whole Foods is everything.
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  Feedback, comments, questions, a nice Jewish boy looking for a date,
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  email me at lindsay at thedailysarcast.com.
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  Thank you so much for listening. Again, don't forget to sign up for the summer
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  residency if you haven't already, and I will talk to you guys tomorrow.